Digging for dinosaur bones is a popular 'holiday' activity for adventurous visitors to outback Queensland. They're searching for large dinosaurs called sauropods.

These were land based dinosaurs and they roamed the vast forested floodplains that surrounded the inland sea that covered much of Queensland and central Australia about 95 million years ago.

Well-preserved bones and other fossilised remains of these dinosaurs have been found in the rocks underlying the mitchell grass downs that now dominate the landscape around the town of Winton.
This includes the remains of the largest dinosaur yet found in Australia - an animal that has been nicknamed 'Elliot'. These bones were first discovered in 1999 by local grazier David Elliott, he noticed a bone fragment on the surface of the ground as he was mustering sheep.

Scott Hocknull from the Queensland Museum says "it wasn't just any old fragment of bone that you find on the surface - this was a piece of thigh bone that measured 50cm in diameter, so you're talking about an animal with a 50cm wide knee".

Mr Hocknull describes the dimensions of this dinosaur (it was) "an animal with a four metre high rump, maybe 16 metres long and 20 tonnes in weight". "it wasn't just any old fragment of bone that you find on the surface..."The Queensland Museum has led a number of 'digs' at the Elliot site near Winton, involving the Elliott family and volunteers from all over the country.